Eta prisoners go on mass hunger strike

Hundreds of jailed members of the Basque terrorist group Eta have begun a hunger strike to demand recognition as political prisoners.

By Fiona Govan in Madrid

1:24PM GMT 25 Jan 2010

The Basque Political Prisoners group (EPPK) announced that 742 of its members currently serving time in jails across Spain and France would refuse food in protest at what they call "cruel prison policy".

The group has called for an end to solitary refinement and demanded that Eta prisoners be held together in jails in the Basque region, where they can be closer to their families.

"We do not have to accept that any one of us be isolated, kept at a distance or dispersed," the prisoners' organisation said in a statement published in Gara, a pro-independence Basque-language newspaper.

Spain's policy is to keep Eta prisoners in isolation from each other in jails across the country in an effort to prevent further plotting behind bars.

But family members and supporters complain that they are forced to travel miles from the Basque region to make visits and that Eta prisoners should for "humanitarian reasons" be jailed closer to home.